


Out of the West

by ishafel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-11
Updated: 2011-03-11
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:03:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishafel/pseuds/ishafel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how saints are made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of the West

They bury Snape in the crypt at Malfoy Manor, at midnight and by torchlight, because they have not got a working wand between them. Narcissa is the only one who cries.

Draco's hands are shaking, and the flickering light renders Snape's grey face, his ruined throat, ghastly and obscene. There has been no time to wash the body, and Lucius has no prayers left in him. He presses gold coins into the wells of Snape's open eyes; he closes Snape's fingers around a hawthorn branch. He bends and kisses Snape's forehead, and then he pulls Snape's mask down and leaves him alone in the dark.

Men from the Ministry come the next day, asking about Snape's body. Lucius lies to them, and he thinks that they believe him, because in the end they go. Lucius tries to be glad of that, at least. Snape was never meant for martyrdom. He wanted peace; let him have peace. Let him rot, there with the dead.

It is the only gift Lucius has left to give. He, who once stood at the Dark Lord's right hand, has no fortune, no prospects, nothing but his tarnished name to recommend him. Snape betrayed him, but he saved Lucius's son, and once he was Lucius's friend. Lucius understands why he did it, what it means to love: it may be that he alone of the Dark Lord's Death Eaters understands.

He misses Snape, more than he ever thought was possible. Snape had been bitter, and often cruel, and a traitor: Snape had been loyal, in his way, long after the faithful had fallen away. And Snape had made Lucius laugh, when he'd thought nothing would ever be funny again.

Snape had never believed, not in the beginning when Lucius had recruited him, not in the end when Lucius had wanted nothing more than to be free. Snape had been everything and nothing that the Dark Lord wanted in a Death Eater. Brilliance, reckless courage, deathless hatred, all of it wasted on a halfblood in love with a Mudblood.

Lucius had envied him, early on, because Snape had fought like a man with nothing to lose. Lucius has never stopped thinking of the things he has to lose, the things he's lost. He was never brave, not even when he thought the Dark Lord's cause was worth fighting for, not even when bravery was the order of the day.

He has nothing to be brave for now. He stays behind the wrought iron gates of Malfoy Manor. He loves his wife. He watches his son finish growing up, and teaches him what he can, and is grateful for the opportunity. He doesn't answer the door when Potter comes, full of questions about Snape; he doesn't starve, or freeze, or run out of books to read, although sometimes in the winter he thinks he might.

Three years after the war ends Narcissa falls pregnant. She is old for it, even for a witch, and from the start she has an awkward time of it. Lucius is desperately afraid for her. There is very little in the house of any value, that has not already been sold or destroyed. What there is, he takes to London, to Knockturn Alley, and sells. There is enough money to pay for a doctor, and for the deposit St. Mungo's requires, when Narcissa's time comes.

She is very ill after the baby is born. Lucius sleeps in a chair next to her bed and asks too many questions, until the nurses banish him from the hospital. By then he knows that there is very little hope, that they want him to have a night to prepare himself, to come back ready to stay by her until the end. He goes home, and paces the halls of his empty house, while Draco hovers over him like a house elf.

When he can stand it no longer Lucius goes down to the crypt. He has not been inside since they buried Snape. No one has. The dust is thick, undisturbed, on the uncarved lid of Snape's tomb. Lucius sinks to the floor beside it, and tells Snape everything. For once, Snape has nothing clever to say, no way of making it better.

In the morning he takes the Knight Bus back, a handful of early spring flowers from the garden in his hands. He does not think about the news that might even now be waiting for him. He does not think that this might be justice, come round at last, for all those he killed. He does not pray, or offer himself in trade. He is beyond all of that: he only endures.

He arrives to find Narcissa better, almost well. Her skin glows, her eyes sparkle, her hair falls around her in a golden cloud, and she kisses Lucius and admires the flowers he brought before she turns her attention back to the baby in her arms. Everything that was wrong is suddenly right again.

The next time Potter comes to interrogate him, Lucius is in the garden with his sons and his wife, and he cannot bring himself to lie or hide. Surely there is no harm in leading Potter down into the depths of the house, past the remains of a dozen generations to the spot where Snape lies. Surely it is not wrong that someone should remember Snape as he might have been, that someone should bring him flowers and light candles for him.

Between them Lucius and Potter lift the heavy marble cover from the tomb. Lucius is dreading the sight of Snape's body, crumbling here where there is little air or moisture and less light. He was present when the Ministry disinterred his father, searching for Dark artifacts, so he knows what to expect. But there is nothing in Snape's sarcophagus but a discarded mask, a crumpled cloak, and a few drops of long-dry blood.

Potter lets the slab of marble fall back with a crash, and turns so quickly that his robes stir the dust on the floor. But there are no footprints but his, and Lucius's, and the half obscured set Lucius left months ago, that lead only to the foot of the tomb. There is no evidence that Snape was ever there, in life or in death.

Lucius has no answers. He climbs the stairs, Potter at his heels, love and light and life before him, and the sound of his family's laughter to guide him.


End file.
